


Jensen/Pritchard drabble set

by SkartoArgento



Category: Deus Ex (Video Games), Deus Ex: Black Light - James Swallow, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Genre: Affection, Angst, Death, Drabbles, Fluff, Friendship, Glasses, M/M, Valentine's Day, relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 07:31:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13359474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkartoArgento/pseuds/SkartoArgento
Summary: A set of shorter Jensen/Pritchard fics as single chapters.





	1. Glasses

**Author's Note:**

> I like to write shorter fics as well, but I can and will forget that I've written them, so this is now my archive.

Seven a.m found him in front of the door to Pritchard’s office, stomach twisted into a tight, nervous ball. A few other staff members had trickled in through the lobby, mostly scientists eager to get down to the cafeteria in the labs for their early morning caffeine fix, but no one walked past him as he stood there, no one wondered why he kept rubbing the back of his neck or shuffling forwards and backwards.

_Come on. Coward._

He took one long, deep breath, and opened the door.

Pritchard perused the bookcase opposite, back to him, several strands of hair escaping the ruffled ponytail. Wireless earphones peeked out from Pritchard’s ears, and since his entrance wasn’t met with flustered squawking – “Jensen, get out of here, I’m not nearly ready to entertain you today,” probably – safe to assume the music masked the click of the door.

A roll of white-shirt-covered shoulder,s and Pritchard sighed. He froze, but couldn’t stop his gaze wandering downwards. Black pants today. Tight black pants.

Pritchard selected a book off the shelf, ponytail swinging merrily away, one of those thick spider-killers about cybernetics, and turned, eyes on the cover of the book.

He almost took a step back, almost thought some stranger had wandered in by mistake. Thin black wire-framed glasses rested on Pritchard’s nose, the ends of the frame tucked into brown hair. Behind them, Pritchard’s grey eyes looked bigger, owlish, softened some premature lines. Taking into account the white shirt, he could have stumbled upon some book store owner ready to take stock.

The swift jolt right between his legs surprised him nearly as much as the glasses. He took one step forward, and Pritchard looked up, eyes wide, mouth open to splutter some protest. A hand came up, yanked the glasses away in an angry, embarrassed motion. Too hard. They fell, tumbled through the air –

Landed in his palm.

He didn’t realise how fast he’d reacted until he straightened, the glasses loose between his fingers. Not a scratch on them.

“These things are expensive.” He took a step forward, dangled them between his thumb and fingertip. “You shouldn’t be throwing them away like that, Francis.”

Pritchard’s glare held all the warmth of a glacier. Arms wrapped around the book, pressed it tight against Pritchard’s chest as though he’d tried to take it away. Red blotched cheeks. “ _What_ are you _doing_ in here, Jensen?”

“Saving your glasses, obviously.” He held them out, but Pritchard shrank back. “What, don’t want them anymore? Don’t you need them to see?”

“I only _need_ them when I’ve stared at the screen too long. Why is that any of your concern? Give them back, then – or why don’t you throw them away? Isn’t that what people like _you_ do to people like _me_?”

He held his arms out to the side in a ‘what the hell’ gesture. “'Thank you, Jensen, thank you for saving my expensive glasses instead of letting them break on the ground.’ You could have said that instead of being weird.”

“You shouldn’t have bothered.” An anxious glance back down at the glasses betrayed those words. Did Pritchard really think he would throw them away? Jesus, that was sad.

He bent the ends of the frame out. “Can I?”

“Can you what?”

Some more stray hairs had trembled themselves in front of Pritchard’s face. He brushed them away with the back of his hand, tried not to linger, tried not to notice the parting of Pritchard’s lips when he tucked the longer hairs behind an ear. Gently, he perched the glasses back on the slope of a nose, fed the ends of the frame back where they belonged.

Pritchard blinked up at him, apparently lost for words, for once. Once those eyes met his, they skittered away to safety beyond his shoulder. Hands clenched the book harder. Lips still parted, so he disguised his step away as an examination of the way the glasses sat on Pritchard’s face. “They look good on you.”

Red muted to a soft blush, but Pritchard’s gaze remained firmly elsewhere.

Turning his back hid his smile. “Try not to drop them again, I might not be here next time to save them. Or maybe I will. Up to you.”

He closed the door behind him with a gentle click. The smile wouldn’t remove itself from his face. Definitely should turn up early more often.

 


	2. Resurrection

It caught his eye, a shadow against shadow, as he wiped Jensen’s computer. The coat still hung from the back of the office door, even after all these months, its owner rotted away now, surely, into bones and twisted metal on the ocean floor.

It drew him – a moth to a flame, a tiny fish to a sunken corpse.

His thumb found the pattern in the material, subdued gold plumes against black. Even though the desk drawer lay half-open when he entered, and most of the books pulled out of the bookcase, no one thought to take the coat, although it wouldn’t be much longer. Maybe a few days before the lack of staff forced the building into a premature closure and hell opened at Sarif Industries.

And he’d be one of them, another rat deserting the sinking ship, leaving Sarif to clutch desperately at the helm.

But that didn’t matter; he’d drowned months ago.

Either he took the coat or someone else would. Someone else would wear it, sell it, get their smell all over it, maybe tear accidental holes in the sleeves, eventually throw or give it away. The though jabbed an icy spear of grief through his stomach, and before he could stop to consider, the coat lay in his arms like a dying man, heavy and scented too-liberally with the terrible aftershave Jensen wore. Used to wear.

The tears came after he left the building for the final time, his resignation on Sarif’s desk, and the coat a comforting weight over his shoulder.

 

* * *

 

Rummaging around in the pockets would feel too much like grave-robbing, so instead, he stroked them down, ran his fingers down the lumps inside. A box, maybe a cigarette packet. A small hard cylinder. What felt like a piece of paper or card in the inner pocket – maybe a picture of Megan or that dog Jensen used to talk about.

He never went further than guessing.

The night stole up on him as he lay in bed, stared up at the ceiling. If he turned the light off, water spilled from darkness and trap him fathoms deep, so he kept every light on, blazing, filled the apartment with sky instead.

His fingers smoothed the coat, the silk material inside. Aftershave was no longer terrible, it smelled like musk and vanilla and a hint of sweat when he breathed deep. And he’d take it all back, everything, all the horrible things he’d said, all the times he sneered – all of it, if he could only see Jensen standing there, wearing that aftershave and scowling back.

He draped the coat over his body, tucked the collar to his chin. Jensen’s neck had been there. And Jensen’s arms had once filled the sleeves. And Jensen’s back had pressed where his hands roamed.

The collar grew damp against his face. How much grief could one person be expected to feel before the hurt went too deep to repair?

Sleep came in a blur, eased the ache between his ribs, the coat fisted in his hands.

 

* * *

 

When he woke, he kept his eyes closed. The Rialto breathed around them with the huge, silent life that only old buildings cold convey (and in the two years since leaving Sarif Industries he’d come to know quite a few.)

He shifted, surprised to feel the slow haze of drowsiness – living in Detroit’s abandoned buildings never left for anything other than waking quickly if you wanted to keep all your belongings, not to mention your life – and the coat slid to the side, the collar falling over his face.

_No._

Fear clenched his chest. No, no. It hadn’t all been a dream, couldn’t have been – Jensen had come back, and he’d handed the coat over. He couldn’t be back in his apartment with the coat covering him, Jensen was here, alive, not miles under the ocean –

A grope of his hands, and disorientation spun the world into whirls of colour. He closed his eyes again, stretched out from underneath the coat –

and touched something warm and soft lying beside him.

His heart thudded, but his eyes stayed shut tight, so tight they ached while his fingers explored. Warm, the heat of metal and skin. The dip of a neck and the bristled grizzle of jaw.

Relief, and then another dose of terror. It could still be a dream – hadn’t he had plenty like this, the agony of seeing Jensen all over again only to be torn away with waking?

A pulse throbbed under his fingertips. He startled at the first touch against his cheek, against the hand that slid to cup the side of his face. A shuffle, and the coat was pulled up, gained someone else underneath. Cold, and then warm, very warm. An arm slipped around his back, pressed him close. Lips touched his temple.

Not a dream. A resurrection.

Both of them back from the dead.

 

 


End file.
